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I made it so that the rain would still mean something after she was gone
My mother died in February. By the spring I had worked out what I was actually missing, and it was not what I expected.
Her name was Margaret. She gardened every day she was allowed to, she was impossible to buy presents for, and she loved rain in the plain way that people who work outdoors love rain.
When she died I expected to miss the obvious things. The phone calls. Her handwriting on the Christmas tags. I did miss those.
What I had not braced for was the weather.
Forty years of wet afternoons had her in them
That is the whole of it. If it rained, she was in it somewhere: out in the garden in unsuitable shoes, or at the kitchen window being quietly pleased, or ringing me to tell me about it.
Then she was gone and it rained anyway. The same amount, on the same roof. It was just water.
I had not understood that a person can take a kind of weather with them.
What I made
A rain drum is a steel drum with tongues cut into the lid, built to live outdoors. Rain falling on it sounds the tongues. It does not wait to be used and nobody has to be awake. It works at six in the morning in an empty garden.
I made one in the spring. Teal, because that was the colour of her kitchen door.
I put it where the gutter runs over, which is the loudest place and the least sheltered, and it has been there ever since.
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It did the one thing I wanted
It gave the rain something to do again.
That is all it did. It is not comfort exactly and it is certainly not a replacement. But a wet morning now has a sound in it that is there on purpose, and after a winter of water just falling on things, on purpose turned out to matter a great deal.
I notice that I listen for it. I did not plan that either.
The practical part, because she would have asked
It stays outside. Powder-coated steel, so it is not something you run out and rescue before a shower. The shower is the entire point.
The tongues are numbered and the songbook uses those same numbers, so there is nothing to read and nothing to learn first. It is tuned so that any two tongues sound right together, which means it cannot be played badly, which would have delighted a woman who insisted for sixty years that she was not musical.
Why you can buy one
Because enough people asked. Mostly her friends, standing on a porch in the rain, hearing it and wanting to know what it was. More than one of them had lost somebody as well.
If you are buying this because of somebody, I am not going to tell you what it will do. I did not know what it would do either. I can only tell you that I made it for a woman who was already gone, and that it turned out to be the most useful thing I did that year.
The honest limits
Worth being plain about what this is, because the thing it did for me is not a thing a piece of steel can promise anybody.
It is quiet. Rain strikes one tongue at a time, so it is closer to a wind chime than to a drum kit. If you are hoping to hear it from the far end of the house with the windows shut, you will not. Under the run-off, from a kitchen window, you will.
The weather picks the order, not you. It does not play tunes on its own. It sounds whatever the gutter happens to hit, which is the whole appeal and also the honest limit.
It will weather. It is powder-coated steel left outdoors on purpose. Over seasons it will look like something that has been outside, because it has.
It is not a remedy. I am not going to tell you what it will do for you, because I did not know what it would do for me. It gave the rain something to do again. That turned out to be enough.
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Common questions
Does it really play on its own in the rain?
Can somebody with no musical training play it?
Can it stay out all winter?
Is it loud enough to annoy neighbours?
I am buying this because somebody died. Is that strange?
What if it is not right?
Garden Rain Drum
- ✓It plays itself when it rains. Water striking the cut tongues sounds them, one at a time, for as long as it rains. No power, no batteries, nothing to switch on.
- ✓Numbered tongues, nothing to read. The beginner songbook uses the same numbers that are cut into the lid, so there is no notation and no lessons.
- ✓Pentatonic tuning. Any two tongues sound right together, which means it cannot be played badly.
- ✓Powder-coated steel on rubber feet. Built to stay out through the wet months rather than be rescued before every shower.
- ✓Complete. Two mallets, the beginner songbook and a cloth pouch.
The wet months are the only season this is really for, and they are now. Shipping is free within the United States.
Free US shipping · 30 days to send it back · two mallets and the songbook included